We are now on a train on our way to St. Petersburg and it is with great relief that I can say we BARELY made this train. It took us over 20 minutes to check out of our hotel and that was time we were planning to have to get to the train station. We literally had to run, with our huge packs, up and down the massive escalators in two metro stations and then try to find our train station. We were so desperate that Nate willingly asked for directions 3 minutes before our train was to depart - and these trains are always on time. You know things are bad when any man will ask for directions without any nagging from his wife first!
As we ran on the platform, they were announcing that our train was leaving and the lady at the very first car let us board even though that wasn't our car. It was well after the train departed that we found our seats in the fourth car. We were dripping with sweat because even at 6:30am, it is hot and muggy. But now we are resting comfortably on a very nice high speed train and we should arrive in St. Petersburg in 4 hours. So that was our near disaster!
But now to report on yesterday's activities in Moscow. As Nate mentioned yesterday, Moscow is ridiculously crowded. There are millions of people everywhere. Every metro station and car looks like Trax right after a Jazz game or General Conference lets out. That is my only frame of reference for how many people can be crammed into such a small space.
But we successfully navigated the metro system - again thanks to Nate's
ability to read the signs. And many of the metro stations are architecturally beautiful. No two stations are the same and some even have marble columns and stained glass.
Many have tile murals and pictures. They are also very deep. You ride a very long escalator to get down to the station (the same escalators that we had to run up earlier, but I digress!)
We also went and saw Pushkin's Square, which is the monument to the famous Russian author Alexander Pushkin. There is a nice park there where we bought ice cream from one of the many carts and rested for a while.
We also went and saw the KGB building and a lot of the cathedrals. The GUM was one of Natalie's favorite stops. It is a large building that runs along one side of Red Square. It used to be a government run store, but it is now a gorgeous, upscale mall with fountains, pedestrian bridges and skylights. We also found the very first free public restroom of our entire trip - and it was nice!
We also went down to the Arbat. An old artists street that has been turned into a pedestrian mall. There are a number of souvenir shops and restaurants there. Also, for some reason a lot of tattoo parlors. Natalie was tempted to get something done at the Tattoo Dragon. But we didn't have time. There are also a lot of painters and street artists selling their work on the street. Over all one of the nicer parts of Moscow. On our way from the Smolensk metro station we saw something never before seen outside of Russia; the walk-through McDonald's Amazing!
For lunch in Moscow, we had to stop at McDonalds just to check it out. It was very crowded (are you seeing a theme here?), but the food was good and we got a Shrek Happy Meal toy to take home to the kids.
Because we didn't have free wi-fi in our hotel, we had to find an internet cafe. We found one in the metro station by the kremlin. They charged about $1.75 for 20 minuted of Internet. I guess that is better than the $30 a day that our hotel was charging for Internet to our room.
Have we mentioned how expensive everything is here? VERY expensive! Right up there with, if not more expensive than, London and New York.
For dinner, we found a grocery store and bought some bread, cheese, yogurts and cookies. The bread was very good. We eat a lot of bread here. I figured out that the only way that many of the girls stay so skinny here is because they all smoke. No wonder the life expectancy isn't very high!
But back to Moscow. It is a huge city and we only saw bits and pieces of it. We don't think we could ever, ever, EVER live here, but it is definitely interesting to experience it!
Highlight of Moscow: seeing the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral and finally getting over the jet lag.
Lowlights of Moscow: all the people (especially the tourists - which we didn't encounter in Ukraine) and almost missing our train to get us out of here!
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